I read the outside of the envelope, the name of a bank in Atlanta, a phone number, some other cryptic marks. The information so important to Sinclair.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she says. “I just want to go home.”
I point the muzzle at her stomach, and an anger blacker than the darkness in my mind oozes from my pores.
“Jesus please no.” She shakes. The sheet drops, and she makes no move to cover her nakedness.
“We’ve known each other since we were kids.” I tighten my finger around the trigger. “And this is what you do to me?”
“I just wanted out.” She crosses her arms, covering her breasts now. “I wanted to go somewhere new.”
“You finally got to see the ocean at least.” I close one eye, aim at her face.
“I could buy my way back home with the envelope, couldn’t I?” she says. “It’s all I’ve got. Please tell me I could.”
And then, like a light extinguished, the anger is gone.
“I’m sorry about Danny,” she says. “But Sinclair told me he needed to make an example out of somebody, you know, to keep people in line.”
“You’re not fit to say his name.” I sling the shotgun over my shoulder by its strap and pick up the lighter.
“You and me,” she says. “We could ransom the envelope to Sinclair. Use the money to start over.”
I smile, the decision made. I flick the lighter, hold the flame under the envelope.
“NOOOO.” She lunges toward the fire.
I kick her away, hold the envelope up high until the flames singe my fingers and the precious slip of paper is consumed.
“See you around, Chrissie.” I let the ashes flutter to the dirty carpet.
Two blocks down is the car I’ve left parked by the seawall. I leave and walk there, the permanent darkness in my mind lessening just a fraction.
The ocean is cold and gray, a line of storms visible on the southern horizon. The beach is empty except for a couple of people surf-fishing and an old guy with a metal detector. The air smells like seawater. Gulls trill overhead.
Danny the Dumb-ass sits on the hood of the car, watching a tanker steam by in the distance. I sit next to him.
“Did you find her?” he says.
I nod.
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know.” I sigh. “Maybe we should go to California.”
They say every dog has its day, so I guess every uppity piece of Czech trash has a chance to break free from the burden of lowered expectations.
Sinclair, of course, is dead. Every night in my dreams I picture the surprise on his face as I shot both him and the guard right before they went to work on Danny with the blowtorch.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Danny smiles. He slides off the hood and gets in the car.
I look at the Texas coast one last time and do the same.
An hour later, we’re on the highway by the cutoff.
I ignore the road west and point the car toward our place in this world, the little corner of Central Texas where we’d both been born and would die.
Danny doesn’t say anything. Neither do I.
Baby Killer
Richard Lange
FROM Slake
PUPPET SHOOTING THAT BABY comes into my head again, like a match flaring in the dark, this time while I’m wiping down the steam tables after the breakfast rush at the hospital.
Julio steps up behind me with a vat of scrambled eggs, and I flinch like he’s some kind of monster.
“Que pasa?” he asks as he squeezes by me to drop the vat into its slot.
“Nothing, guapo. You startled me is all.”
I was coming back from the park and saw it all. Someone yelled something stupid from a passing car, Puppet pulled a gun and fired. The bullet missed the car and hit little Antonio instead, two years old, playing on the steps of the apartment building where he lived with his parents. Puppet tossed the gun to one of his homies, Cheeks, and took off running. He shot that baby, and now he’s going to get away with it, you watch.
Dr. Wu slides her tray over and asks for pancakes. She looks at me funny through her thick glasses. These days everybody can tell what I’m thinking. My heart is pounding, and my hand is cold when I raise it to my forehead.
“How’s your family, Blanca?” Dr. Wu asks.
“Fine, doctor, fine,” I say. I straighten up and wipe my face with a towel, give her a big smile. “Angela graduated from Northridge in June and is working at an insurance company, Manuel is still selling cars, and Lorena is staying with me for a while, her and her daughter, Brianna. We’re all doing great.”
“You’re lucky to have your children close by,” Dr. Wu says.
“I sure am,” I reply.
I walk back into the kitchen. It’s so hot in there, you start sweating as soon as the doors swing shut behind you. Josefina is flirting with the cooks again. That girl spends half her shift back here when she should be up front, working the line. She’s fresh from Guatemala, barely speaks English, but still she reminds me of myself when I was young, more than my daughters ever did. It’s the old-fashioned jokes she tells, the way she blushes when the doctors or security guards talk to her.
“Josefina,” I say. “Maple was looking for you. Andale if you don’t want to get in trouble.”
“Gracias, señora“she replies. She grabs a tray of hash browns and pushes through the doors into the cafeteria.
“Que buena percha,” says one of the cooks, watching her go.
“Hey, payaso,” I say, “is that how you talk about ladies?”
“Lo siento, Mamá.”
Lots of the boys who work here call me Mamá. Many of them are far from home, and I do my best to teach them a little about how it goes in this country, to show them some kindness.
At twelve I clock out and walk to the bus stop with Irma, a Filipina I’ve known forever. Me and Manuel Senior went to Vegas with her and her husband once, and when Manuel died she stayed with me for a few days, cooking and cleaning up after the visitors. Now her own Ray isn’t doing too good. Diabetes.
“What’s this heat?” she says, fanning herself with a newspaper.
“And it’s supposed to last another week.”
“It makes me so lazy.”
Irma and I share the shade from her umbrella. There’s a bench under the bus shelter, but a crazy man dressed in rags is sprawled on it, spitting nonsense.
“They’re talking about taking off Ray’s leg,” Irma says.
“Oh, honey,” I say.
“Next month, looks like.”
“I’ll pray for you.”
I like Ray. Lots of men won’t dance, but he will. Every year at the hospital Christmas party he asks me at least once. “Ready to rock ‘n’ roll?” he says.
My eyes sting from all the crap in the air. A frazzled pigeon lands and pecks at a smear in the gutter. Another swoops down to join it, then three or four smaller birds. The bus almost hits them when it pulls up. Irma and I get a seat in front. The driver has a fan that blows right on us.
“I heard about the baby that got killed near you yesterday,” Irma says.
I’m staring up at a commercial for a new type of mop on the bus’s TV, thinking about how to reply. I want to tell Irma what I saw, share the fear and sorrow that have been dogging me, but I can’t. I’ve got to keep it to myself.
“Wasn’t that awful?” I say.
“And they haven’t caught who did it yet?” Irma asks.
I shake my head. No.
I’m not the only one who knows it was Puppet, but everybody’s scared to say because Puppet’s in Temple Street, and if you piss off Temple Street, your house gets burned down or your car gets stolen or you get jumped walking to the store. When it comes to the gangs, you take care of yours and let others take care of theirs.
There’s no forgiveness for that, for none of us coming forward, but I hope—I think we all hope—that if God really does watch everything, he’ll understand an
d have mercy on us.
Walking home from my stop, I pass where little Antonio was shot. The news is there filming the candles and flowers and stuffed animals laid out on the steps of the building, and there’s a poster of the baby too, with “RIP Our Little Angel” written on it. The pretty girl holding the microphone says something about grief-stricken parents as I go by, but she doesn’t look like she’s been sad a day in her life.
This was a pretty nice block when we first moved onto it. Half apartments, half houses, families mostly. A plumber lived across the street, a fireman, a couple of teachers. The gangs were here too, but they were just little punks back then, and nobody was too afraid of them. One stole Manuel Junior’s bike once, and his parents made him bring it back and mow our lawn all summer.
But then the good people started buying newer, bigger houses in the suburbs, and the bad people took over. Dopers and gangsters and thieves. We heard gunshots at night, and police helicopters hovered overhead with their searchlights on. There was graffiti everywhere, even on the tree trunks.
Manuel was thinking about us going somewhere quieter right before he died, and now Manuel Junior is always trying to get me to move out to Lancaster where he and Trina and the kids live. He worries about me being alone. But I’m not going to leave.
This is my little place. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a nice, big backyard. It’s plain to look at, but all my memories are here. We added the dining room and patio ourselves, we laid the tile, we planted the fruit trees and watched them grow. I stand in the kitchen sometimes, and twenty-five years will fall away like nothing as I think of my babies’ kisses, my husband’s touch. No, I’m not going to go. “Just bury me out back when I keel over,” I tell Manuel Junior.
Brianna is on the couch watching TV when I come in, two fans going and all the windows open. This is how she spends her days now that school’s out. She’s hardly wearing anything. Hootchie-mama shorts and a tank top I can see her titties through. She’s fourteen, and everything Grandma says makes her roll her eyes or giggle into her hand. All of a sudden I’m stupid to her.
“You have to get air conditioning,” she whines. “I’m dying.”
“It’s not that bad,” I say. “I’ll make some lemonade.”
I head into the kitchen.
“Where’s your mom?” I ask.
“Shopping,” Brianna says without looking away from the TV. Some music and dancing show.
“Oh, yeah? How’s she shopping with no money?”
“Why don’t you ask her?” Brianna snaps.
The two of them have been staying with me ever since Lorena’s husband, Charlie, walked out on her a few months ago. Lorena is supposed to be saving money and looking for a job, but all she’s doing is partying with old high school friends—most of them divorced now too—and playing around on her computer, sending notes to men she’s never met.
I drop my purse on the kitchen table and get a Diet Coke from the refrigerator. The back door is wide open. This gets my attention, because I always keep it locked since we got robbed last time.
“Why’s the door like this?” I call into the living room.
There’s a short pause, then Brianna says, “Because it’s hot in here.”
I notice a cigarette smoldering on the back step. And what’s that on the grass? A Budweiser can, enough beer to slosh still in it. Somebody’s been up to something.
I carry the cigarette and beer can into the living room. Lorena doesn’t want me hollering at Brianna anymore, so I keep my cool when I say, “Your boyfriend left something behind.”
Brianna makes a face like I’m crazy. “What are you talking about?”
I shake the beer can at her. “Nobody’s supposed to be over here unless me or your mom are around.”
“Nobody was.”
“So this garbage is yours then? You’re smoking? Drinking?”
Brianna doesn’t answer.
“He barely got away, right?” I say. “You guys heard me coming, and off he went.”
“Leave me alone,” Brianna says. She buries her face in a pillow.
“I don’t care how old you are, I’m calling a babysitter tomorrow,” I say. I can’t have her disrespecting my house. Disrespecting me.
“Please,” Brianna yells. “Just shut up.”
I yell back, I can’t help it. “Get in your room,” I say. “And I don’t want to see you again until you can talk right to me.”
Brianna runs to the bedroom that she and her mom have been sharing. She slams the door. The house is suddenly quiet, even with the TV on, even with the windows open. The cigarette is still burning, so I stub it in the kitchen sink. The truth is, I’m more afraid for Brianna than mad at her. These young girls fall so deeply in love, they sometimes drown in it.
I change out of my work clothes into a housedress, put on my flip-flops. Out back, I water the garden, then get the sprinkler going on the grass. Rudolfo, my neighbor, is working in the shop behind his house. The screech of his saw rips into the stillness of the afternoon, and I smile when I think of his rough hands and emerald eyes. There’s nothing wrong with that. Manuel has been gone for three years.
I make myself a tuna sandwich and one for Brianna, plus the lemonade I promised. She’s asleep when I take the snack to the bedroom. Probably faking it, but I’m done fighting for today. I eat in front of the TV, put on one of my cooking shows.
A knock at the front door startles me. I go over and press my eye to the peephole. There on the porch is a fat white man with a sweaty, bald head and a walrus mustache. When I ask who he is, he backs up, looks right at the hole, and says, “Detective Rayburn, LAPD.” I should have known, that coat and tie in this heat.
I get a little nervous. No cop ever brought good news. The detective smiles when I open the door.
“Good afternoon,” he says. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m here about the boy who was killed Sunday, down at 1238?”
His eyes meet mine, and he tries to read me. I keep my face blank. At least I hope I keep it blank.
“Can you believe that?” I say.
“Breaks your heart.”
“It sure does.”
The detective tugs his mustache and says, “Well, what I’m doing is going door to door and asking if anybody saw something that might help us catch whoever did it. Were you at home when the shooting occurred?”
“I was here,” I say, “but I didn’t see anything.”
“Nothing?” He knows I’m lying. “All that commotion?”
“I heard the sirens afterward, and that’s when I came out. Someone told me what happened, and I went right back inside. I don’t need to be around that kind of stuff.”
The detective nods thoughtfully, but he’s looking past me into the house.
“Maybe someone else then,” he says. “Someone in your family?”
“Nobody saw anything.”
“You’re sure?”
Like I’m stupid. Like all he has to do is ask twice.
“I’m sure,” I say.
He’s disgusted with me, and to tell the truth, I’m disgusted with myself. But I can’t get involved, especially not with Lorena and Brianna staying here. A motorcycle drives by with those exhaust pipes that rattle your bones. The detective turns to watch it pass, then reaches into his pocket and hands me a business card with his name and number on it.
“If you hear something, I’d appreciate it if you give me a call,” he says. “You can do it confidentially. You don’t even have to leave your name.”
“I hope you catch him,” I say.
“That’s up to your neighborhood here. The only way that baby is going to get any justice is if a witness comes forward. Broad daylight, Sunday afternoon. Someone saw something, and they’re just as bad as the killer if they don’t step up.”
Tough talk, but he doesn’t live here. No cops do.
He pulls out a handkerchief and mops the sweat off his head as he walks away, turns up the street toward Rudolfo’s place.
A noise. Someone coming in the front door. I sit up lost, then scared. The TV remote is clutched in my fist like I’m going to throw it. I put it down before Lorena sees me. I must have dozed off.
“What’s wrong?” she says.
“Where have you been?” I reply, going from startled to irritated in a hot second.
“Out,” she says.
Best to leave it there, I can tell from her look. She’s my oldest, thirty-five now, and we’ve been butting heads since she was twelve. If you ask her, I don’t know anything about anything. She’s raising Brianna differently than I raised her. They’re more like friends than mother and daughter. They giggle over boys together, wear each other’s clothes. I don’t think it’s right, but we didn’t call each other for six months when I made a crack about it once, so now I bite my tongue.
I have to tell her what happened with Brianna though. I keep my voice calm so she can’t accuse me of being hysterical; I stick to the facts, A, B, C, D. The questions she asks, however, and the way she asks them, make it clear that she’s looking for a way to get mad at me instead of at her daughter.
“What do you mean the back door was open?”
“She acted guilty? How?”
“Did you actually see a boy?”
It’s like talking to a lawyer. I’m all worn out by the time I finish the story and she goes back to the bedroom. Maybe starting dinner will make me feel better. We’re having spaghetti. I brown some hamburger, some onions and garlic, add a can of tomato sauce, and set it to simmer so it cooks down nice and slow.
Lorena and Brianna come into the kitchen while I’m chopping lettuce for a salad. They look like they’ve just stopped laughing about something. I feel myself getting angry. What’s there to joke about?
“I’m sorry, Grandma,” Brianna says.
She wraps her arms around me, and I give her a quick hug back, not even bothering to put down the knife in my hand.
Harlan Coben Page 28
